A Thorough Investigation of Death the Kid
by EternalShame
Summary: Kid's got questions, and Stein is willing to answer them—as long as the mad doctor is allowed to satisfy his own curiosity first. But their arrangement comes with several unfortunate consequences. Not a pairing fic except for some mild KidLiz in later chapters. Warning: description of gore, dark humor.
1. Chapter 1

_Authors' no__te:_** A more definitive warning: tread carefully if you are squeamish. The majority of this fic contains vivisection (with consent). **_If that's what you came here for, we hope you enjoy!_**_  
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Taking several quick, deep breaths of the gray, nicotine-scented air, Death the Kid twitched his fingers. Once more, he tugged experimentally at the straps holding him in place. Naturally, it didn't work. He rolled his eyes upward into an unamused expression. He was already tired of being poked and prodded.

Franken Stein paused in his work to check the young reaper's face, working the cigarette around in his mouth. "Ah. What's wrong? Are we uncomfortable?"

Kid deciding against laughing sarcastically at him, since laughter would jolt his diaphragm and he couldn't tell from his current position how close the Professor's scalpel was to his internal organs. "What was that, some sort of joke?"

"Well, you _did_ agree to this." The professor shrugged and leaned back over Kid's bare midsection, twisting at the screw through his skull with one hand.

"Agreeing to it and actually doing it are very different things, and I think it's justified if I have a few second thoughts. Are you almost done?"

"Yes. With the marker."

Kid craned his neck in order to see his body. "What?" His skin was still perfectly whole, looking ridiculously white in comparison with both his black undergarments and the dotted lines that tracked across his belly in chaotic rows.

"I haven't actually made the first cut yet," Stein explained almost apologetically.

"You haven't?!" Kid attempted to sit up.

"Of course not. I wouldn't smoke over an open subject."

With a thump, the adolescent reaper's head lolled back against the table. Would that really make a difference so long as the room had been smoked in at all? If he'd had his hands free, he would have rubbed circles into his eyebrows. "We've been here for twenty minutes!"

Stein checked a clock on the wall behind Kid and put his cigarette out absently. It was not quite midnight yet. "Eighteen. By the way, you might not want to lift your head like that during the actual procedure. Since you requested to remain awake anyway—" Ah, good, good, Kid needed another regret to dwell on right now—"it's more interesting if you don't pass out. I can always immobilize your head if you wish."

"No, thank you, I'm strapped down tight enough already. I needed to be restrained for this part _why_?"

"I got a little enthusiastic. Sue me. I've never gotten the chance to dissect a reaper before."

"Vivisect."

"Pardon?"

He sighed. "If the organism in question is dead, the term is dissect. If it's alive, you call it vivisection."

Stein bent over his face with a deadpan expression, one eyebrow three degrees higher than the other. "Your name is _Death the Kid_."

The boy considered this. "That is a fair argument, but mine stands. You've been misusing that word for quite a while now."

"Unless I don't intend for you to make it out of this alive," Stein noted, his voice dissonantly calm as his hands crawled into a pair of thin gloves.

For a second, Kid wasn't sure of what he'd gotten himself into. His mouth curled into a frown as he glanced uncertainly at the mad doctor.

Franken Stein just gave him a cheery smile and patted his head. "But that would be ridiculous, especially considering you're Lord Death's son!"

"Indeed," the boy grunted. "There would be hell to pay."

"Exactly. Now hold still and let me know if you want anything to bite down on."

"Why would I need—_aaahhhghhh!_" Kid shied away as the cold scalpel finally met his skin.

Stein paused, concerned. "What's the matter?"

Kid calmed his breathing long enough to ask, "Are you sure you used anesthetic?"

"Positive. Can you feel pain?"

Kid nodded dully. "I guess my suspicions were correct. Chemicals don't last long in my system."

"Do you want to stop?"

The reaper's yellow eyes rolled over to meet Stein's. "Will you tell me what I want to know if I do?"

The hand that wasn't armed with a blade reached up and twisted the end of that stupid screw as Stein stared at him, seeming not to comprehend.

"Then carry on." Kid grit his teeth and shut his eyes, but he couldn't keep noise from escaping him as the blade plunged back in, continuing its neat path down his abdomen. He was a reaper. He could get through this. But the agony and the knowledge that it was practically self-inflicted rattled him. Plus the quiet, wet, tearing noise. That did not help. Stein was systematically slitting him open, all sympathies forgotten in his excitement.

"Hmm... You already appear to be anomalous. I wish I had someone to take notes. I don't suppose you'd remember if I dictated them to you, would you?"

"My mind is a little preoccupied at present," Kid admitted, sucking in a breath, and he flinched as another long, shallow furrow was drawn into his flesh.

Stein paused to wipe up the blood that had begun to trickle from the incisions with one swift swipe. "Remind me to take a sample of this."

"Pretty sure I bleed like a normal human," Kid mumbled, remembering all the times he and his weapons had patched each other up after missions.

"Well, from what I can tell, you bleed much faster than usual. This most likely has to do with your healing abilities. Your wounds need to be cleansed as quickly as possible in order to avoid sealing over and becoming infected...but this begs the question, how long do you have before you run out of blood?" The man pulled back to adjust his screw with several good clicks, and Kid caught a glimpse of red on his gloved hand. The young soul reaper swallowed and turned his eyes back to the zigzag staples on the ceiling that were designed to recall the appearance of sutures. The crooked pattern, which would normally drive him insane, was now a welcome and even pleasant distraction.

"Later, later," Franken Stein finally muttered to himself, then he slid the knife back in and teased the beginning of a new gash into Kid's chest. The metal skidded over the reaper's ribs and he finally screamed, arching his back with the effort of escape.

The pain ceased temporarily, and Kid gave a sob of relief. Stein had vanished from his side, but when he returned, his hands flew around Kid's head, slipping a thick strip into his slack mouth and fastening it behind him so it wouldn't fall.

"That should help. You're doing very well," Stein told him. He pretended not to notice the tear dripping freely down the reaper's stubborn cheek for both of their sakes. Kid ran his tongue over the object in his mouth and tasted leather, then bit down on it. Before he even had time to grit himself, Stein had leaned down, finished his final cut, and set the bloody scalpel aside.

The man grinned eagerly, but then he wiped the expression from his face and glanced at Kid's eyes, sighing. "Just a forewarning: this is going to be very unpleasant."

Kid's legs bent against the straps and his fingers scrabbled at the table as Stein set his fingers into the wounds and carefully pulled back his skin. The leather gag swallowed the boy's shrieks. Sweat glued his black-and-white hair to his forehead and he steeled himself. Then it was over. Stein clinched his flesh in place and his eyes widened with both surprise and interest and he studied the newly-revealed innards. He took a step back, then unfastened Kid's gag and tugged his gloves off.

"Interesting colorations... I'm definitely going to need to take notes. I hope you don't mind waiting."

"Oh, yeah, sure, I'll just be here," Kid started to grunt, his voice dripping with sarcasm, but then he realized Stein actually did intend to leave him alone in a room, unable to move, with his guts exposed to open air. "Wait! Professor Stein—!"

"I won't be long. Hey, Kid? I'd advise you not to look at it."

Well, of course not. Kid huffed as the door clicked shut behind Stein. He rattled his wrists in the cuffs again, but his arms weren't pinioned close enough for him to reach his own body. At least the room wasn't freezing. Being dangerously close to unclothed and anatomized in a basement laboratory was uncomfortable enough without his breath clouding in front of him. His flesh had been fastened lightly, and though it reported a dull, pulsing pain, the piercing agony was gone for now.

He tried to ignore it completely, but now a tentative curiosity was beginning to get the best of him. What other chance would he have to sneak a peek at his own insides? And it wasn't as though he'd never seen himself bleed before. But, he reminded himself, receiving a dangerous wound in battle and having his abdominal cavity laid open were very different things. This had been done deliberately for evaluation purposes. He reminded himself of what the mere sight of his blood on Stein's hands had done to his mind.

...Maybe just a glimpse.

Gritting his teeth, he rolled his eyes downward and angled his head very slowly until the gash came into view and he was treated to a nice, unhindered look at the top of his own intestines. They were surprisingly light in color, bringing to mind the texture of a peeled hard-boiled egg, but pinker.

He tensed and saw them quiver. A whimper escaped him.

Okay. That was a good enough glimpse.

If his stomach hadn't already been empty for hours, he probably would have thrown up. A raw taste rose in his mouth as he tore his gaze away. His hair did a poor job of cushioning the fall back against the metal surface. He tried not to remember Stein's comment about how he might bleed out faster than any other living being, because all the blood abandoning his face right now had to be going _somewhere_, and he could only hope that it wanted to stay _inside_ him. Unfortunately, the _drip, drip, drip_ staining the metal table told him otherwise.

Stein re-entered a second later with camera phone in hand. He took one look at Kid's paler-than-normal, wide-eyed stare and his gray brow quirked. "You looked, didn't you?"

All Kid could manage was a nervous, babbling laugh, but his abdominal muscles were currently split down the middle, so the sound emerged a lot less sane-sounding than it should have. "Ahh heh ha hahahaa..."

"You didn't have to. If you're that curious, I'll show you the pictures later." Stein tapped the camera phone, positioning it over his subject.

"I'm a minor. Is it even legal to photograph my insides?" The boy inquired as a shutter sound effect echoed around the small room several times. He kept his feet in limited motion, trying to draw his mind's attention away from the gaping maw that had been made of his midsection.

"Ehhh. I don't have to get your face in them, if that helps."

"Hah! Oh, no, just go ahead and post them online like that. I'll tag myself. 'Hey, Maka! Would you like to see how I party? It involves lying to my weapon partners about where I'm going so they won't attack the man they find splitting me open and taking instagram pictures!'"

"You seem a little bitter."

"Fantastic work, Professor. You have truly _marvelous _powers of observation!"

Stein's brow creased and he took a moment as he slid the phone into his lab coat pocket to lay his bare hand over his subject's drenched forehead. "Kid, calm down. You're getting hysterical."

Death the Kid paused to note the erratic heartbeat pounding at his ears and obliged. He took several deep breaths and blinked the eyelids he hadn't noticed were twitching, trying to quell the tremors racing across his now partially-visible stomach. "Sorry. I'm fine, I'm fine! I'm fine."

"Are you in a lot of pain? We could try anesthetics again."

Kid kept his eyes on the ceiling. "It wouldn't work, just trust me on that. It's the same reason I can't dye my own hair. I'm immune to any form of invading chemical, good or bad." An unpleasant heat began to crawl along his skin, beckoning another cold sweat. He blinked, starting to wish the lab was chilled after all. "So...why's the room so temperate, anyway? I assumed it would be colder down here."

"The body fights infection better if the room's warm, but if it's too warm, then _I'd_ be uncomfortable," the man was happy to explain as he moved to wash his hands and obtain a new set of medical gloves. "Most doctors keep the O.R. cool for their own sake, but I'm not like most doctors."

"You've made that fairly clear by offering important, possibly life-changing information to me in exchange for a friendly vivisection."

"Uh-huh. You should see the unfriendly ones." He hmmed. "I really do prefer the term 'dissection'... It just sounds better." But then even he noticed Kid's pulse speeding up again and he dismissed his own comment with a wave. "I'll finish this up soon, don't want to stress you out."

"I'd appreciate it. Errghh...!"

Kid gasped as the professor began sorting through his organs. Stein tugged at anything loose enough to move, his enthusiasm very poorly concealed behind his stitched, apathetic mask. Kid squirmed at the invasive contact. This sensation, at least, was not painful, but that didn't mean it was welcome.

"Do try not to flinch like that. I thought to grab the camera specifically because I don't want to draw this out for you, you know. I'll just take notes later."

Kid nodded, groaning. "Oh, yes. Definitely for my sake and not because you have a sick fascination with this sort of thing and wanted to cherish the moment. Creepy b—hggk!"

Franken Stein giggled disconcertingly. His eyes had taken on a maniacal look, too wide open to look natural. "You make such funny little noises. Ahh, hello there. I see you still have your appendix. Perhaps to be on the safe side, I should—"

"No."

Stein checked Kid's face, which was pulled into a scowl. "But it would only take a—"

"_No._"

He frowned, then mimed stroking his chin a few inches away from his actual face. "You know, you only have one appendix—a small and fairly useless organ on the right side of your body. _Only _the right side." He glanced down as Kid quaked, imagining going through his whole life with asymmetrical entrails. "You sure you don't want me to remove the anomaly? I've done it before, multiple times, with no complications."

To his credit, Kid managed to bring his compulsions under control before he cracked. The dull throbbing brought him to his senses, reminding him that such a procedure would be blindingly painful with no anesthetic. "P-positive. Don't you dare, or our contract will be void and I'll tell my father about this."

"Fine," the professor sighed, clearly disappointed, and Kid noticed him discreetly slipping a silver pair of scissors back onto his tool tray before he settled for taking a few more snapshots.

Kid couldn't tell if he was annoyed or grateful when Stein stopped narrating his observations. On the one hand, he didn't have to imagine what was happening anymore. On the other, there was nothing to fill the absence of Stein's musings. A torturous silence was spent watching the mad doctor's face flick between puzzlement and fascination as gloved hands squelched around inside him. Kid held off shuddering as long as he could, but eventually he shook enough to jar Stein's knuckles. It was then wordlessly decided that enough data had been collected.

"You're going to need this," he said, leaning down to secure the leather strap between Kid's teeth. For a moment, he bent too low and bumped a tray of tools with his hip, and he paused to make sure nothing had been dislodged. When he finished securing the gag, he left a crimson spot on the boy's cheek by accident and went to wash off his gloves in the sink. "Sorry, I'm not used to this much blood flow in any specimen, alive or dead."

Any attempt at language was garbled in the leather. Stein calmly unclipped the pink folds of Kid's skin and set them back into place as the reaper wriggled and grunted. A few seconds later, he was sewing the wound shut for good, and Kid let himself relax, despite the continual prick and tug.

"Is that it?" The boy asked when his mouth was freed again. He chanced a peek at the wound, the sight of which was easier to bear now that it was being sealed.

"Haha. Not quite, but that that's it for the fun part. Now we're going to run some tests."

"More than just a blood sample?" Kid asked, his momentary relief already fluttering away.

"Oh, thank you, I had forgotten about that. Yes, but nothing too extreme, just following up on some observations I made earlier." Once he had finished stitching his subject shut, Stein planted himself in his familiar wheeled chair and puttered about the room for a few minutes, gathering different tools. Kid lifted his head all the way while he waited and found himself admiring the scar that traced a Y from his collar down his belly. A yawning hurt hung in the lines and he felt sore beneath them, but Stein had done a good job of keeping the sutures symmetrical. How thoughtful.

The professor came back around and undid the strap around Kid's right wrist.

"Ah, thanks," the boy started to say, but sooner than he could process, Stein had dug a needle into the crook of his elbow and was leeching blood out of his veins. Kid winced, annoyed that Stein had only freed him out of convenience.

After he'd labeled the blood sample, Stein set it aside and slipped one skull-shaped earbud in.

Kid frowned at this. "Is our conversation that uninteresting, you feel the need to put on a little music?"

The man chuckled at his naiveté. "Not at all. It's an EKG. Hold this, please." He passed some sort of wire into Kid's hand before fetching a roll of medical tape and affixing it with an X across the left side of the reaper's rib cage. The scalpel had found its way back into Stein's hand, though now that the actual vivisection was over, Kid couldn't imagine what it was for. The scientist rolled down to study Kid's long, skinny legs and chose a spot on the underside of his calf, just below his knee. He smiled. "All right, here we go, last experiment. Ready?"

Kid slid his free hand to cushion the nape of his neck and let his eyes slide shut. "Ready," he answered. He wanted this to be over so he could interrogate Stein about those last few pieces of the puzzle his father refused to share with him. That was the deal they'd made. If Stein had those answers—and Kid wouldn't have agreed to this if he wasn't positive he did—it would all be worth it.

But it turned out that Kid was not, in fact, ready. He did not expect Stein to stab him in the leg. And he definitely did not expect Stein to pry the wound further open, causing an eruption of blood to splatter across his hand.

"What are you doing!" Kid cried in disbelief, a wave of light-headedness crashing over him.

Stein had seemed so calm up to this point. Even now, he sat unmoving, his eyes glued to the face of a watch that had previously been hidden under his white sleeves.

Kid's leg screamed with pain, seeming to jolt him down to his bones. "Professor! Professor Stein! S-stop!"

Stein merely held up one finger to silence him. His scalpel was still buried in Kid's leg, angling a small but deep incision until rivulets of blood poured out.

Struck by momentary panic, Kid tried to wrench his leg away, forgetting that it was still firmly strapped down. The bleeding sped up, gushing up into the air as he struggled. Red began to fleck Stein's lab coat and face, but the man paid it no heed.

"Did you—did you slice open an...artery?" Kid slipped backward, dizzy, until it seemed like he wasn't on the table at all, and he just continued to fall straight through with an ache forming in the back of his head. His blood was pooling around him and all he could think was that he never should have trusted Franken Stein. The man was simply mad after all.

Dimly, he heard more observations being made in an excited tone, then Kid was lost to the world.

* * *

"Liz called."

Kid's eyes cracked open. He was lying in in a bed that would have been much more comfortable if it didn't have meandering stitch marks worming through the sheets. He turned to see Franken Stein standing next to him, calmly taking a drag from his cigarette.

"What?" he croaked.

"Oh, you are awake, then. Good. You've been out for hours."

"Did you say...something about Liz?" Kid moaned as an attempt to sit up sent agony coursing back through him. His abdomen was apparently _obscenely_ angry with him, but that still wasn't as mad as Liz would be if she found out about any of this.

"Yeah, she called here and asked if I knew where you were. She sounded worried."

Kid gave up on his attempts to sit up. He was so sick of staring at ceilings. "Did you tell her?"

Shaking his head, Stein tapped ash into a bowl. "Should I have?"

"No. I should tell her myself. But before I do, I still have questions for you."

"I have all day. What's on your mind?" Stein flopped down into his usual position on the office chair, supporting his arms and chin on the back, any professional poise gone.

This was it. Kid swallowed. It was time to ask the question that had been burning in his throat ever since he'd returned home to find his father's condition. He passed a hand across the sutures in his stomach as if it were up to him to hold the wounds closed. "Is there a way for me to age into a fully-developed reaper...without killing my father?"

There was a pause, and Franken Stein pulled the cigarette out of his mouth. "How did you know about that?"

"I just do," Kid shrugged, pulling both of his arms out from under the covers. "It occurred to me as soon as I noticed the crack in his mask." That face had been flawless ever since Kid was created—and long before, even. Even when it took damage, it was easily restored. But only now, as he was coming of age, had it decided to deteriorate? Besides the improbability, Kid's reaper instincts insisted that this was going to happen and tried to make him believe it was natural.

Professor Stein's gaze slid to the floor. "When you were younger, your father came to me and said that when you were old enough, you would take his place not only as head of the DWMA, but as the Grim Reaper. It's a cycle. Every time a new reaper is created, the one who created it must die less than a century later."

"Less than a century," Kid mused, staring at his splayed fingers. "Then he still has time!"

"I'm afraid the old reaper only lives until the new one becomes wise enough to take his place. That's why he keeps so many secrets from you."

Kid blinked, letting his hands fall back onto the mattress. "Oh, Dad...what have I done."

"Of course, the ultimate decider is the Sanzu lines," Stein added, drawing a halo in the air around his screwed head. "Once all three connect, you will be fully mature. And to do that, you still require training only he can give to you."

"Thank you, Stein, that makes me feel a bit better."

Stein pointed toward Kid's lengthy new vivisection scars, which were now concealed under the sheets but still hurt like heck. "And, speaking of feeling better, that should heal up enough for you to walk around by evening, given your abnormal regenerative abilities. Also, good news: you produce blood cells at an incredible rate. But try not to exert yourself for the next few days all the same."

For a minute, Kid considered voicing every negative opinion of Stein that had been hovering in his head since their bargain had been struck. But he hadn't had food in a day or so, and furthermore he was stuck in Stein's house until evening, so he decided that could wait. "Got anything to eat around here?"

"I can check. I wonder if food will boost your recovery speed."

Kid's eyebrows drew down until they interfered with his vision. "The experiment isn't even over for you yet, is it?"

Along with a small cloud of cigarette smoke, Stein left a sadistic cackle to echo in his wake. This was going to be a long, long day.

* * *

_To be continued.  
_


	2. Chapter 2

Kid glared at his headboard.

It was still perfectly even on both sides. He knew because this was the twentieth time he'd gone over it since waking. He just decided he needed something to be mad at, and the headboard would just have to do until something else came into his line of vision, because his pillow was just too accommodating to stay angry with.

Something on his underside was pinching, and he couldn't see what it was, but it was obviously affiliated with the vivisection scars Stein had given him yesterday—well, two nights ago, to be exact. The pain only served to remind him of the entire torturous affair, and furthermore, he couldn't comfortably move to see if it was an issue that could be resolved. He'd gotten back to Gallows Manor shortly after nightfall, mumbled a random excuse to his weapon partners, and collapsed in bed, and he couldn't remember anything after that which would justify this new stinging.

His bedroom door creaked to announce a new presence, and he jerked his neck around. Good, both of the double doors had been opened at the same time. His weapon partners let go of the handles, and while Liz used her aloof stride to reach him in a roundabout way, Patti had no such self control. Every time she saw anything as remotely bouncy as a mattress, she had to jump on it. Normally it would have bothered him that Liz was wearing cowboy boots today while Patti was only in her socks, but as soon as the younger sister began stomping all over his bed, he was grateful the two were mismatched.

He was not, however, grateful for the stomping itself. His mattress wasn't made of memory foam, and he gave a sharp cry of pain as he was jostled.

"Quit it, Patti!" Liz yelled quickly, breaking off her slow approach to hold up a hand in her sister's direction.

Patti saw it and came to a disappointed halt, then flopped down beside their meister. "Whatcha doin' still in bed?"

He tried to maintain a professional front. "Well, Liz, Patti... as you well know, I may or may not have had a run-in with a crazy organ thief."

Liz still didn't buy the story. She'd seen Kid beat up a mob single-handedly. And not just a "mob" in the "group of random angry people who can't fight" sense, but serious New York mobsters. "Yeah?" she said skeptically.

"Well, I, uh... The experience may have left me unable to do certain things until my body fully recovers," he explained.

Liz put her hands on her hips. She knew he was hurt, but she was mistaken in assuming that whatever happened had been more damaging to his pride than anything else. "So? You should still get up in the morning. Don't worry, if you can't reach a certain picture frame, I'll straighten it for you—"

Kid buried his face in his pillow. "The point is, some time during the night, I rolled over onto my stomach, and I can't turn back around or sit up, and I need you to flip me onto my back."

Well, there went Patti. She was laughing at him. Again. Liz just took a minute for his words to play back in her head, then she asked the most appropriate question her brain produced. "Say what?"

"I can't get upright. If I try, it hurts." His voice was still muffled in the pillow, but his weapon partners were used to listening for that.

At first he thought Liz would say no. Patti might still help him, but he would have to refuse if she did—he needed both of them, one on each side.

But then she just sighed and muttered something about him getting himself into all sorts of trouble without them and put her knees up on the bed until she was next to him and Patti opposite.

"Please be gentle," he whimpered.

It only took them a second to roll him over, but a sharp gasp indicated a new issue—and this time, it wasn't Kid who made the noise.

"Oh my gosh! Patti, go run and grab the first aid kit. Kid, you're bleeding!"

He looked down to find a dark, rusty stain on the sheets where he'd been lying, and another, wine-colored one spreading over his navel. "Ah, that would explain the pinching."

Patti charged off dutifully, and Liz practically straddled him, unbuttoning his pajama shirt from the bottom up.

"Liz, don't bother with it, I can get help on my own—"

"I've dealt with bleeding wounds before, Kid," she started to snap, then her fingers hesitated at their work as she caught sight of the line that went through him.

"I must have popped a stitch," Kid commented, trying to play it off lightly even as his face burned with shame.

"This is..." Liz swallowed, then unclipped the next button, and the next, always expecting to see the scar end, until eventually she ran out of buttons and his shirt was splayed open so the Y-shaped scar was in full view.

"Kid, what..."

He could see the part of her that wanted to withdraw curling at her mouth. "It's, uh, no big deal. As you can see, I got the wound closed up."

"Someone did this to you on purpose," she whispered.

"Well, yes. Typically wounds of this caliber aren't accidents," he said drily, easing himself up.

"And the limp—" Liz moved off to the side and touched his knee. "Was it this leg?"

"No," he said, but he was a poor liar in her presence. "What limp? I wasn't limping."

She rolled the cuff of his pant leg up until she found the taped wad of bandages. Kid was frustrated to see that blood had colored the cotton there as well, though it was nowhere near as alarming to look at as his middle. _But seriously_, he growled internally at his injuries, _couldn't just one of you behave?_

Patti came back, flailing the red case over her head, but Liz automatically stopped her in her tracks.

"Wait, Patti, stay there. This isn't something we can slap a band-aid on." She rapidly sealed his shirt back up, turning to him to whisper, "What should we do?"

He winced. "I suppose you should...take me to Professor Stein. He _is_ the leading expert in sutures..."

To his surprise, she scooped him up, with one hand under his knees and the other through his armpit.

"I—I can walk," he protested.

"Not on that leg, you can't."

"Sis, does he have a cool scar?" the younger girl inquired. "Can I see?"

"No, Patti, it's not cool at all. Come on. Mr. Franken Stein will know what to do."

"Oh, yeah! We're going to see that funny screw guy?" She mimed the way Stein twisted at the device in his head. "He's so weird."

Kid wiggled in his weapon partner's arms. "Could you at least find a more _symmetrical_ way to carry me?"

She pulled him closer to limit his efforts and glanced down. "Wanna go piggy-back?"

He took a moment to imagine his arms around her neck, being bumped around on her solid frame, her arms entangling his legs and his face resting against her soft, wispy hair—

"Actually, this is fine," he said, surprising himself.

"Suit yourself," she said, secretly relieved. She'd carried him that way before and it wasn't easy.

She walked smoothly, so as not to jolt more blood from his broken stitches. After a hesitant tip of his head, Kid leaned into her shoulder. Suddenly it didn't seem all that important to him that his stitches had ripped, or that Stein had almost gutted him, or that he was in pain.

Liz grabbed one of his long cloaks before they left the Manor and wrapped him in it to hide the blood on his pajamas. She tried to ask him what had really happened during the trip, but he kept his mouth shut, never holding his eyes on one thing for long. A red flush had crept over his cheeks, whether from embarrassment, or from having Liz carry him like this, or even from a yet undiscovered illness, none of them could tell. Gravity played with his hair until his face was partially obscured; all except his bitter frown, and Liz took this as a sign that, for whatever reason, he could not honestly answer her questions.

Mira Nygus greeted them when they finally entered the DWMA. "Hey, you three," she said, pausing in the hallway. "You're very late today."

"Hey, Ms. Mira. We're sorry. Professor Stein is here, right?"

"We need 'im! Kid might be sick!" Patti announced.

"Might be, or is?" The woman chuckled. "And Stein's teaching class right now. Though, I swear, he's in a jolly mood today for some reason."

"Thanks, gotta run." The two girls ignored the woman's further comments and sped around the corner to their regular classroom, burdened with Kid, and Patti pried the door open.

Franken Stein was in the middle of a lecture, but when he noticed Liz jerking her head toward the black, reaper-shaped bundle in her arms, he wrapped it up quickly and left his students to their quiet gossip.

He came out into the hallway and followed Liz to the dispensary, slipping his lab coat back on as he walked. "What's wrong?"

"We need a favor. It's Kid, he's been..." Liz sent a discreet glance in Patti's direction and cut herself off.

"He's got an ouchie," the younger sister explained frankly, opening the door for them.

"Uhh, more or less, yeah. Thanks, Patti."

"Lay him down and I'll see what I can do." The gray-haired man paused to fish medical instruments out of a cabinet as Liz followed his instructions, once again opening Kid's shirt and cuffing his silky pajama bottoms. Patti was immediately fascinated by Kid's hidden injury, her mouth dipping into a silent "oh" shape.

Kid was silent, and now his eyes were glued to Stein, as if he was afraid to look away for one second. "Liz, Patti," he whispered subtly before the professor came over. "Watch him."

And they did, but Stein didn't do anything besides calmly deduce the problem, slip sterile gloves on, and add a few stitches to Kid's stomach. When Liz pointed out the stab wound on Kid's leg, he nodded and changed the bandage. He didn't cut anything, he didn't cause any unnecessary pain, but, most suspiciously of all, he _didn't _ask where the horrific wounds had come from.

All this time, Death the Kid watched him with a guarded expression. Only when Liz took her meister's hand and realized he was shaking like a leaf did she figure out the last clue: the way the new sutures blended in much too well with the old ones.

When the professor was finished, Kid was able to stand and hobble around gratefully. "Thank you. Liz, Patti, you ready to go?"

"We'll catch up!" Liz waved after him and slipped her free hand into Patti's. Kid hesitated at the door, glancing back at them. Liz gave him an adamant smile and he shrugged and left. She turned. "Professor Stein, could we talk for a minute?"

"I always have time for my most interesting students, Ms. Thompson. What's on your mind?"

Patti sucked on her finger. "So was it you?"

Stein didn't pause in his task of reordering the medical equipment. "Was what me?"

Liz glanced at her sister. She hadn't been aware that Patti had also figured it out. She shook her head, feeling a little proud, and continued. "That scar. It was too neat and precise to not have been made by a doctor."

He closed the cabinets. "I won't deny it."

"Do you know how much trouble I could get you in over something like this?" Liz asked pointedly.

"Yes, but I don't think Kid will let you, considering his motivations behind the experiment echo my own."

"You're claiming Kid agreed to have you cut him up?"

"I am, but I'll forgive you if the only truth you trust is the one he tells you."

"Okay, look." Liz shifted her weight to her other hip, tightening her sister's hand in hers in case either of them had to transform. Patti's face had morphed into a slightly demonic grin. She knew what was coming. Both of them could be scary when they wanted to be.

"I still don't know both sides to the story, so I'll let this slide for now, but let me make this clear: I don't care what your motivations were. If you touch _our_ meister again, we'll show you what the Thompson sisters are capable of." Liz leaned into the professor until her finger pressed just above his collarbone. She wasn't as tall as him, but the menace in her eyes was real.

Franken Stein was highly amused. He looked at them as though they were a meal. "There are rules about threatening a teacher, you know. But you're justifiably upset, so I won't say anything." He opened the door for them, signaling their dismissal. "I'm glad you brought him to me. I'd hate to see anything bad come of my experiment."

"Don't call it that," Liz shuddered.

"You're terrible," Patti said evenly as she passed him.

"Have a nice day, girls. Let me know if there are any other problems."

Kid was leaning against the wall in the corridor. He watched Stein's retreating back until it turned the corner. Liz and Patti lingered either side of him until he shook himself. "So," he said casually.

"Is it feeling better now?" Liz asked hopefully.

The boy traced the line from navel to chest over his shirt with one hand and both eyes. "Yes, actually. Thank you." He lowered his voice, still not looking at them. "What did he tell you?"

Liz considered demanding the full story out of him right then and there, but his crestfallen expression softened her.

"Nothing," she said. "He told us nothing."

* * *

At first, he could not even scream.

There was something thick in his mouth, holding his jaw open until he felt like it would seep down into his throat and suffocate him. He bit through it, but it hung in place as his surroundings were lit up.

Franken Stein was there, nearly silhouetted against the white ceiling lights, his mouth pulled back into an unnatural smile. Kid jerked his head to both sides, only to remember his hands were transfixed to the table with vice-like straps. His skin glistened with a sweaty sheen as his arms struggled uselessly, flopping like fish ready to be gutted. He turned back to his tormentor, his eyes pried open with pure terror.

Of course. The experiment had never ended.

"Ah, you're awake again. Did you have a nice dream?" The man giggled, twirling his new weapon of choice: a set of glittering scissors. There was something wrong. This was not the Stein known to the DWMA. His eyes twitched endlessly, flicking across his trapped experiment, and his teeth ground together in excitement. A deep laugh seemed to curl out of him like a wild animal's death rattle. Was this...madness?

Kid spat out the smothering gag. "Professor Stein!" he cried immediately. "Stop this! You're not yourself!"

Again came the clicking, the twisting of the screw. But this time there was no uninterested line for his mouth, no sign that he was considering this option. It had been replaced with a mirthless grin.

"I've been instructed that all scum must be wiped from the face of this planet," he explained, his voice hitching with stifled laughter. "And you look a lot like scum to me."

"No, I'm not, I'm not, I swear I—" His protests were cut off as Stein began to snip away at him. Kid retched and the metallic taste of blood burst in his mouth.

"I've always wanted to dissect you," the man said gleefully. To Kid's alarm, he began bagging bloody, unidentifiable organ samples. "I wonder how deep I'll have to go before I find your soul."

Trying not to drown in gore, Kid yanked at the straps, but they seemed to tighten on his arms, pressing into his flesh. Someone was screaming, and he could no longer tell if it was him. He tried to run, but his feet were limp and useless. Only when he looked down again did he realize why. Viscera trailed out from under his split skin, the sole remaining bond between him and his pelvis. Stein had effectively cut him in half.

The professor's voice was low and serious, and Kid realized his showy insanity persona had been a facade all along. Stein was in complete control of his actions. He always had been. This deal was the most foolish mistake he'd made in his short life. "You'll never leave this room. You're going to be my living dead experiment forever."

The boy screamed himself hoarse.

Then the straps turned into fingers gripping his biceps, threatening to cut off the circulation in his arms. Kid found himself staring into Patti's blue eyes, panting, his throat raw. Her childish face had become serious, and the lines of her lips quivered with fear. Both of them were still shrieking.

Liz's voice joined the fray of noise. "Kid! It was just a nightmare!"

Kid ran out of breath and curled into a ball on his side, wrapping his arms around himself. "Disgusting," he breathed, like a mantra. "Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting..."

"What is?" Liz asked, rushing over to them.

Tears distorted his vision as he pulled his head up to stare at her in horror. "I am." He spoke in little more than a painful whisper. His throat burned.

"No, you're not." Her fingers were in his hair, brushing it away from his sweat-drenched forehead.

Patti clicked a lamp on. The sudden, bright light, in combination with the accompanying sound, just made the dream fly back through Kid's mind. He crashed into the blankets with a choked, inhuman cry, wrapping his fingers tightly around his midsection as if he couldn't keep his insides from spilling out across the bedclothes.

While the older sister temporarily vanished from the room, Patti rubbed gentle circles into his shoulders. She knew all about unpleasant nightmares, even more than Liz, and she knew how long they took to go away. She hummed nursery rhymes until the reaper ceased shaking quite so violently. By the time Liz returned with a tall glass of water, he was sitting, still hunched over, but upright.

"You scared us half to death, you know," the oldest Thompson sister chided softly, tipping his chin back and touching the glass to his lips. "We could hear you yelling in your sleep from all corners of the manor."

"I know, I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice still shot.

She let him take a long sip of water. "You'll have to tell us eventually, you know."

The water seemed to go straight to his eyes, but he said nothing. They spent several long minutes without words as Kid coughed and swallowed and tried to repair his throat.

"It was about my father," he said at length. "Stein knew what I wanted to know, so we made a deal. He could...poke around inside a reaper, as long as, afterward, he would answer any question that was previously denied me."

The Thompson sisters exchanged glances.

"And he held true to it," Kid added quickly. "In fact, he's promised to continue to answer any and all further questions related to that topic, provided he _has_ the answer himself."

"That still doesn't sound like a good deal to me!" Liz burst out. "What the heck could be so important that this was worth it?"

"My father is dying."

Shocked silence from the two girls.

"Furthermore, I am the cause." Then, hesitantly, he told them the full story.

It was almost two hours before he finished, and by that time, his scars were on full display. Liz couldn't look at them for long, but Patti was glued to the sight, to the extent where she reached up and traced the center of the Y. Kid winced and barked at her to stop, but then he softened considerably.

"I'm sorry. Both of you. I realize now that, even if you didn't like the plan, I should have told you. You could have...protected me." He remembered Stein's sudden chaotic swerve in his last few conscious memories of the experiment and shuddered. "I shouldn't have taken the risk of going there alone."

"You have to trust that we'll go along with you, Kid, with whatever you think is best." Liz sounded hurt.

"Yeah! I wanna see next time!" Patti exclaimed.

There was a pause as Kid stared at her. "You realize this was a very upsetting and traumatic event for me, right?"

She tilted her head, rolling her eyes upward as she considered this. "Hmm, yeah, but a lot of things are upsetting and traumatic for you. Like the number seven. And water."

"And crooked picture frames," Liz added.

"Designer clothing..." Patti began to tick options off on her fingers.

"Eyebrows. Amputees."

"Fraternal twins!"

"Okay, okay." Kid massaged his temples in defeat. "The point is, I won't hide it from you next time. You're my partners and I haven't felt like myself ever since I tried to keep this from you."

"Promise?"

"I promise, Patti. Liz...I'm sorry for worrying you."

The older sister judged him with her chin in one hand, then gave a small nod. "Apology accepted."

The girls stayed beside him for the remainder of that night, their even breathing lulling each other into innocent sleep.

* * *

_To be continued._


End file.
